Tiger goes and gets ‘em

12/31/2018 12:00:00 | Viewed: 1

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Mary and Arturo Magdaleno, owners of Tiger Painting and Remodeling

DALLAS/FT WORTH - When Mary Magdaleno and her husband Arturo Magdaleno were thinking of a name for their company, they wanted to reference something unique but they also wished to highlight something they both appreciated as a couple.

“As my husband and I were thinking of a business name, we realized we both love tigers,” Mary explains. “They are very graceful creatures and they have beautiful colors as well. So we decided to name it Tiger Painting and Remodeling.” Pretty colors and moving through the construction industry with grace is something with which the couple is familiar. It began with Arturo, who passed his expertise on to his family after working for contractors over the years. “Arturo was working for painting contractors and he taught me and our son Arthur how to paint,” Mary says of their beginnings in the industry. “We started in a new subdivision painting the interior and exterior of residential construction in 1994. In 1997, we started honing our skills in the remodeling business. We have moved from just painting to complete remodeling for light commercial and residential projects. We come in and gut the structure out and redo it all.” Arthur is now 21 and helps his parents in the business, along with five employees that include plumbing and electrical guru Diony Flores and supervisor Johanna Cervantes. The couple still rolls up their sleeves to do physical work, but now have the means to hire subcontractors to assist when needed. “Arturo is good at everything; he’s like Superman,” Mary says. “Arthur helped us early in the business and is good at carpentry – and bossing around! He likes to be the head person! He’s pretty strong and helps in almost everything. I deal with customers, manage the office, the paperwork, communications, and also on the job site I do the walk-throughs and check for quality. When I get involved physically in the work, I do the finishing touches.” A recent project of which the family is proud is the work they completed on the post office in McKinney. “We painted all of the walls, replaced lights, completely redid the bathroom and also their fences,” Mary says. Walking into a space they have made over never gets old for Mary and her family, especially when they see their clients’ reactions. “I enjoy the transformations,” she says. “We complete each project to the impeccable final product, which our customers love. Sometimes, they hire us to fix to fix the space so that they can sell it, and after we finish, they say, “Oh, it looks so beautiful! I don’t want to move now!” The steady stream of transformations keeps the family working in close proximity much of their days, but when the Magdalenos have rare free time, you will often find them together as well. “We work so much, we only have time to go to the movies or just go cookout and invite the family over; Arturo loves cooking! He has great taste, and I think he would have been a great chef if he had gone that route,” Mary says with a laugh. There are no plans to slow down the workload any time soon. Mary says she hopes the company will expand its commercial maintenance and new residential construction side and has other plans on the horizon as well. “We would like to implement development into the business,” she says. “We enjoy being a family-owned business but we would like to formalize it more and structure it in a better way where we can. We’d like to get information out to new prospects, not that our business is suffering, though – thank God we are busy all of the time!” Tiger Painting and Remodeling is located in Mesquite. –mjm